2016 ELECTION/HILLARY CLINTON/LEGAL/RUSSIA/TRUMP FAMILY/DONALD JR: “The White House has been thrust into chaos after days of ever-worsening revelations about a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a lawyer characterized as representing the Russian government, as the president fumes against his enemies and senior aides circle one another with suspicion, according to top White House officials and outside advisers.
President Trump — who has been hidden from public view since returning last weekend from a divisive international summit — is enraged that the Russia cloud still hangs over his presidency and is exasperated that his eldest son and namesake has become engulfed by it, said people who have spoken with him this week.
The disclosure that Trump Jr. met with a Russian attorney, believing he would receive incriminating information about Hillary Clinton as part of the Kremlin’s effort to boost his father’s candidacy, has set back the administration’s faltering agenda and rattled the senior leadership team.
On Wednesday, in his first Twitter posts since the email disclosures, Trump defended his son as ‘open, transparent and innocent’ and repeated past claims that his administration is the subject of a ‘witch hunt’ fueled by leakers.”
-Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker, “‘Category 5 hurricane’: White House under siege by Trump Jr.’s Russia revelations,” The Washington Post online, July 12, 2017 06:42am